


Close

by dsa_archivist



Category: due South
Genre: Drama, Episode Related, M/M, Romance, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-01-29
Updated: 2000-01-29
Packaged: 2018-11-10 10:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11125134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsa_archivist/pseuds/dsa_archivist
Summary: Fraser watches Ray dance through a window.This story is a sequel toShadow Dancer.





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**Author's Note:**

> Note from Speranza, the archivist: this story was once archived at [Due South Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Due_South_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Due South Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/duesoutharchive).

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Disclaimer: Alliance's toys, not mine, though I play with them more often  
than they do these days.<g> No copyright infringement intended,  
no money being made, just having a little fun.  
  
Thank you to Maria for the once over, again, and for her support. (You're  
the best thing that ever happened to my ego!)  
  
Contains spoilers for (and some direct dialogue stolen from) the episode  
"Strange Bedfellows", and some very minor spoilers for "Burning  
Down the House"  
  
Feedback is worshipped, and can be sent to  
  
This is a sequel to Shadow  
Dancer.  
  
Rating: About a PG, if only for slashy overtones  
  
Close  
by Tara Blue  
  
The wind, while nothing compared to the icy ones of the Northwest Territories,  
still had a definite bite. It brushed against Fraser's slowly reddening  
cheeks, but the man easily ignored the chill. He'd had practice at ignoring  
cold. The secret was to focus on something else. Fraser was focusing  
on a window. A window on the uppermost floor of a building.  
  
Ray's building.  
  
Ray's window.  
  
A single lamp was on, the curtains open. Every once and a while, the  
wiry blond detective would move into Fraser's line of sight as he paced  
around the apartment. It didn't happen often, due to the minimal area  
visible through the windows, though Fraser's location - crouched on the  
fire escape of the building opposite - meant it was more than he would  
have other wise seen.  
  
His knees were beginning to ache from being forced into a crouching position  
for so long and the wind seemed to be getting colder as the night wore  
on, and Fraser began to consider moving. He pondered heading to the  
roof level, so that, in the very least, he'd have a more stable platform  
beneath his feet than the ominously creaking metal structure. The idea  
had merit, but he soon discarded it, instead leaning further back into  
the shadows. For once eschewing the bright, _bright_ red uniform  
he practically lived in, the Mountie had opted for dark blue jeans, a  
dark sweater, and his leather jacket. Aside from the pale blurs of face  
and hands, he was practically invisible, concealed by the darkness.   
An ideal stake out position.  
  
If he moved, Ray might very well see him. Fraser very much didn't want  
that to happen. Back at Stella's apartment complex, the other man had  
been very clear about his desire to be alone for a while. And Fraser  
had wanted to respect that desire, to leave Ray in peace. But...  
  
But he'd been worried.  
  
There had been something ... something almost indefinably wrong with  
the blonde's demeanour or the way he talked that had started his partner  
worrying. Obsessively, as Fraser often worried. That bewildering _something_  
wrong had been tugging at Fraser all evening, pulling his thoughts time  
and again back to Ray, and he wasn't even sure he could pinpoint exactly  
what had been so wrong. Maybe it could be traced back to the hallway,  
right before they'd parted...  
  
Fraser leaned against the wall of the hallway, just far enough from the  
embracing pair to preserve their privacy. Stella was leaning into Ray's  
lean frame, arms loosely wrapped around his shoulders. Ray was leaning  
back, arms wrapped loosely around her waist. With his ears still ringing  
from the explosion, the Mountie couldn't make out more than the odd word  
strung together by faint murmurs. Not that he was actively trying to  
listen in, mind you. That would be rude.  
  
He firmly clamped down on the urge to strain his ears, to try to catch  
a hint of their conversation. * _Stop that_ * he chastised himself,  
face held carefully blank. * _It's rude._ *  
  
Instead of looking at the detective and his ex-wife, Fraser focused on  
the sight of Dwayne being led away in cuffs. The man, wallowing in self  
pity, was watching his feet forlornly while two police officers guided  
him by his elbows. The little entourage passed, and Fraser absently  
glanced back to the other end of the hallway in time to see Stella reach  
up and kiss Ray on the cheek before turning and going into her apartment.  
  
Ray watched as the door closed behind her before turning himself and  
walking down the hall to join Fraser. There was something about the  
way he held himself. Something in the set of his shoulders. Possibly  
even in tense lines around his mouth. Something sad and tired and defeated.  
It was as though the entire, stressful episode had finally beaten Ray  
into the ground so brutally that it was unlikely he'd be able to pull  
himself up. Even the air of static, popping energy that perpetually  
surrounded him was subdued, a sight Fraser never thought he'd see.  
  
Fraser stood, unmoving, as the other man drew up next to him. Propping  
his hand against the wall next to the dark head, Ray leaned in until  
his blond spikes were nearly brushing Fraser's forehead. Fraser had  
to take a deep breath to suppress the rush of heat that spread through  
his body at his partner's proximity and turn his attention to what the  
man was saying.  
  
"Maybe I should go home." The fatigue, mental and physical  
both, that Ray felt was apparent in the heaviness of the statement.  
  
Knowing it was probably the wrong thing to say, knowing he probably didn't  
want to hear the answer, Fraser asked anyway. "Stella will be alright?"  
  
The planes of Ray's face pulled taut momentarily, and Fraser began to  
silently berate himself for ignoring the voice of common sense that told  
him bringing up Stella would only serve to hurt the other man.  
  
"Nah, she'll be just fine by herself." He straightened, and  
Fraser again had to suppress his feelings, this time an acute sense of  
loss at the physical withdrawal.  
  
That something was still there, there in the way Ray was carrying himself,  
in the set of his shoulders, in the lines around his mouth. It hurt  
Fraser to see his partner in such obvious pain, and he deeply regretted  
that his unthinking question might have contributed to that pain. He  
rabidly searched his mind for something that would help, that would take  
Ray's mind off of his ex-wife.  
  
And all he could come up with was "Want to go get something to eat?"  
  
* _Oh, yes, Ben, that's a great help,_ * Fraser silently railed.   
*' _Want to go get something to eat?' Ray is obviously in great emotional  
pain and the best you could do was 'want to go get something to eat?'_*  
  
Seemingly oblivious to Fraser's self aimed disgust, Ray quietly answered  
"Nah, Fraser, I think I'd like to be alone."  
  
Alone.  
  
And Ray thought he was alone, secure in the privacy of his apartment.  
He didn't know that his crazy Canadian partner was currently occupied  
with sneaking about and spying on him.  
  
But Fraser had been worried. And it wasn't as though he was actually  
attempting to barge in on Ray's solitude, he rationalised. He was just  
checking up on his partner. Besides, after the incident involving his  
psyche profile and being caught in the closet - * _or is that Dad's  
office now?_* - by Inspector Thatcher, Fraser had rather welcomed  
the chance to leave the consulate for a while.  
  
So, there he was, huddled on a precarious fire escape, straining to look  
through the windows of his partner's apartment. * _Peeping tom_ *  
the scratchy voice of his grandmother accused him from the back of his  
head. He ignored her. Listening to one ghostly relative already got  
him in enough trouble.  
  
It had been a while since Ray's last pass by the window. Fraser was  
beginning to think he'd gone to bed, even though the lamp in the living  
room was still on, and the one in the bedroom had remained off. Then,  
suddenly, Ray was back.  
  
And he appeared to be dancing. One sleekly muscled arm was up and cocked,  
as though holding the hand of a partner. One lean, graceful hand rested  
against his own stomach, long fingers spread as though cradling the small  
of a partner's back. Smooth, gliding steps moved Ray out of Fraser's  
sight, but in moments he returned to the area in front of the window.  
  
The play of light and shadow over the detective's head showed his eyes  
to be closed. He had the look of someone focusing so far inward as to  
be oblivious to their surroundings. Yet on he danced. Rocking towards  
the window, and away, and towards it again.  
  
* _He almost looks close enough to touch_ *, Fraser mused, resisting  
the urge to reach out a hand and try. * _So close..._ *  
  
Close.  
  
Ray was always close, always touching. Right from the beginning.  
  
Something Fraser had noticed upon moving to Chicago was how ... close  
everyone was. So many people cramped into one little space. Everyone  
crowding in, living too close, standing too close, just _being_  
too close to each other. Fraser knew that the average American's idea  
of personal space was less than the average Canadians. There had been  
various studies done to prove that by a number of sociologists. Canadians  
simply needed more space between them and other people to be comfortable  
than Americans did. And Fraser needed more space than most.  
  
Fraser _knew_ all these facts, but it wasn't any help when people  
started to hem him in. When they started getting too near to be ignored.  
Telling himself that it was an interesting social phenomena didn't make  
him any more comfortable when people crowded their way into his bubble.  
  
With Ray, though, he had never felt trapped. The blond man was always  
near, always touching him. Leaning in to share a revelation about a  
case. Placing a hand on the back of his shoulder to subtly urge him  
along. Walking down a hallway so close their shoulders brushed. He  
got closer to Fraser than anyone else, yet Fraser found himself welcoming  
the proximity rather than despising it as he did with others.  
  
Still watching the lean, blond man dance along in the building opposite,  
Fraser was overwhelmed by the memory of the first time he and "Ray  
Vecchio" had met. The moment when the man he'd believed to be his  
partner had turned in response to his call.  
  
A stray beam of light filtering through the dusty windows of the bullpen  
brushed the fine spikes of hair and dusting of stubble, turning both  
a burnished gold. His fine boned face was a study of planes and angles,  
and went well with the lanky body which seemed to be all planes and angles,  
too. Absurdly pink lips, kept from being feminine by their narrow lines,  
stretched over teeth in a smile - no, in a grin.  
  
Those lips were moving, forming a word. His name. "Fraser!"  
  
It wasn't until then that Fraser realised this lean, golden creature  
was answering to Fraser's "Ray!". The shock wiped his normally  
quick mind blank, but by then it didn't matter. Those long arms had  
reached out and pulled Fraser into a brisk hug.  
  
The shock of impact between their two bodies jolted the Mountie's mind  
into motion. He began analysing each aspect of the man with clinical  
precision, but little actual though, his thought processes still a little  
slowed with shock and confusion. Each way that this man, who seemed  
to claim to be Ray Vecchio, was different than the man Fraser _knew_  
to be Ray Vecchio.  
  
The man's spikes of dark gold hair rubbed at his cheek, slightly crunchy  
with gel or hairspray or something. Fraser could smell a faintly sweet  
scent from what ever hair product was being used to create the bristly  
effect.  
  
 _Ray's_ hair was not gold touched, or spiky, or even that thick  
on the top.  
  
The hug abruptly ended and the man stepped back, allowing Fraser to see  
more of him.  
  
Translucent blue eyes, not the appropriate soft green ones. A face that  
was all angles highlighted by cheekbones sharp enough to cut, lacking  
the gentle rounding in the cheeks produced by a life time of Ma Vecchio's  
cooking. And the nose. To be blunt, _Ray's_ nose was, well, more  
 _prominent_ than this man's.  
  
Who ever this person was, he was not Ray Vecchio. But who exactly was  
he then? And _why_ had Fraser felt a brush of loss as the one sided  
hug ended?  
  
Back on the fire escape, Fraser smiled a little sadly. That first hug,  
an unexpected touch after a long stretch of physical isolation, had been  
all it had taken to send him tumbling head over heels in love with the  
man whose name he hadn't even know.  
  
Yes. Love. Not as a partner, not as a brother, not even so much as a  
friend, although that was part of it. The kind of love one felt for  
someone they wanted to spend the rest of their life with.  
  
In love with a man who still pined for his ex-wife.  
  
It hurt.  
  
Catching a movement in the apartment across the way, Fraser abandoned  
his unhappy thoughts and focused outwards again. Ray had quit dancing  
and moved to stand in the window. He seemed to be searching for something,  
or someone, on the street below. To Fraser it seemed that the defeated  
slump of the other man's shoulders was even more pronounced than it had  
been when they'd parted company last, his unhappiness almost palpable,  
even viewed from across the street and through a window.  
  
Fraser froze, tucking his hands out of sight beneath him and ducking  
his head to eliminate the give away pale blur of skin above dark clothes.  
* _Don't see me, don't see me, don't see me, oh dear, what was I thinking,  
spying on Ray like this, please don't see me . . ._* The tense moment,  
wracked with fear of discovery, stretched and stretched until it became  
unbearable, and Fraser risked a glance up.  
  
What he saw broke his heart in ways he hadn't realised it could be broken.  
  
Ray was crying. Not silent, stoic tears, but great heaving sobs that  
seemed to be being ripped from his chest against his will. Even without  
the benefit of being able to hear them, Fraser could tell that the agonising  
sound of them was filling Ray's apartment. The lean hands that the Mountie  
so loved to watch as they flitted and fidgeted, never ever still, were  
pressed palm down and fingers splayed against the glass. Ray seemed  
to be leaning all of his weight against those two hands that appeared  
ghostly pale to Fraser, on the opposite side of the window. His entire  
lean frame was shuddering with the violence of the man's sobs, from his  
shoulders to his waist, which was as far as Fraser could see before the  
window sill cut him off.  
  
Ray mourned as he did everything else in life, loudly and boisterously  
and with everything in him.  
  
Mourning for the loss of the woman he loved, Fraser assumed. He ached  
for the detective, and for himself, and for the futility of the love  
each had for another.  
  
Suddenly, it was more than Fraser could endure. Although he longed to  
comfort the other man, he couldn't, and he could no longer stand to stay  
and helplessly witness his grief either. It was time for him to escape  
back to the relative safety of consulate, where he would face _another_  
sleepless night filled with thoughts of Ray.  
  
He stood abruptly, ignoring the shriek of protest his thighs and calves  
sent to his brain at their sudden unfolding. Turning to make his way  
down the creaking stairs of the fire escape, Fraser looked back one last  
time at the apartment opposite.  
  
And met Ray's eyes.  
  
Two pairs of blue eyes widened, one set, tear stained and blood shot,  
in shocked discovery, the other, dry from long moments of staring when  
their owner forgot to blink, in mortified fear.  
  
Ray had seen him. Fraser froze and resisted the urge to sink back into  
the shadows. It was too late. Ray had seen him. Seen him begin to  
climb down from his perch directly across from the apartment windows.  
Too late to go back to the consulate, to hide, to pretend he'd never  
been there. He'd been seen. By Ray. Ray had seen him.  
  
It would only be a few moments until that beautiful, quirky brain shook  
off the effects of surprise and figured out exactly what Fraser had been  
doing. That he'd been spying on his partner, on his _friend_ , through  
the window like some sort of voyeuristic pervert out for a cheep thrill.  
  
Fraser made the most of that time.  
  
He ran.  



End file.
